


The Shattered Sapphire in the Fireplace

by summerstorm



Category: Bones, Disney RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After seven years working field for the FBI and three years having a workaholic forensic anthropologist for a partner, waking up in the middle of the night to vicious cellphone ringing has dropped so low down David's list of annoyances it doesn't even register anymore. <b>Bones AU.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shattered Sapphire in the Fireplace

**Author's Note:**

> Written for openmydoors as a part of jb_ficexchange. Thank you so much to everyone who helped with this along the way, from the brainstorming stages (yulechat! katayla!) to the beta ones (perfectlystill, pirateygoodness = &lt;3) and the panicky ones (annemaris, one day I shall repay you for all this hand-holding).

After seven years working field for the FBI and three years having a workaholic forensic anthropologist for a partner, waking up in the middle of the night to vicious cellphone ringing has dropped so low down David's list of annoyances it doesn't even register anymore. 

It's usually Selena, anyway, and he knows she wouldn't call if whatever was bothering her weren't important, or at least vital to her. She used to be a lot less aware of the hour, and how likely or not it was for David to be sleeping when she phoned. David thinks he got through the last time he tried to explain normal human sleeping routines to her. He told her he couldn't do what she does—stay up all night working on a side career as a writer, then go to work in the morning with fully functional brain cells—unless she wanted him to spare the morgue some work and crash the car on their way there. She blinked and didn't call again until six in the morning.

Definitely an improvement.

He hits his elbow on the headboard and almost knocks down the bedside lamp instead of turning it on just to get to the phone on his nightstand. He's on the verge of cursing up a storm when he hears her say, "Hey," and his mind shifts focus to the voice in his ear so completely that his body stops feeling important enough to hurt.

Which is just pathetic. Useful as a pain threshold increaser in the field, but still embarrassing. Nobody but his doctor should have the ability to distract him from being in pain. Not even Selena. 

"We have a body to retrieve," she continues, not even noticing the lack of answer. "Given the location and state of the remains I'm not sure I understand why you can't wait until morning to question this—Joy Williams person," and he's pretty sure she grimaces at the idea of having to deal with an alive human being there, "but Agent Staub said I should call and ask you to pick me up. Are you okay to drive?"

He refrains from telling her it's _her_ driving after God knows how many hours awake Agent Staub's worried about. "What Joy Williams person?" he fishes out of her speech, reaching for his pants on the chair next to the dresser.

"She's the woman who found the body, I've been told," Selena says, in that way that lets David know she doesn't give a rat's ass what anybody's name is as long as they haven't compromised her evidence. 

He also tries to refrain from banging any vital body parts against the dresser, but his foot doesn't seem to get the memo. "I'll be right there," he grunts. Not the most dignified response, but shit, his _toe_. 

"Okay." He can hear the confusion in her voice, which, mixed with her all-encompassing 'if you want something done well, you've got to do it yourself' approach to life, comes out sounding like vague condescension. She speaks openly patronizingly to most people, though, so David counts this as a win. And besides, she brings out the bumbling idiot in him pretty often, so as long as she believes he is just that dumb, there's no way she might clue into why he acts that way around her. 

Not that David is the kind of person who keeps something like this a secret from the person it concerns, but Selena's always made it clear their relationship is strictly professional. She only recently came to the startling realization that the amount of time they spent together off squint territory and outside FBI headquarters may actually qualify as something akin to friendship, and David's not pushing his luck.

He manages to get dressed in a couple of minutes without injuring himself further, and what feels like three billion hours later he pulls into the nearest place to the lab where he's allowed to park and pages Selena to let her know he's here. 

He opens the door for her from the inside when he sees her approach. She's carrying a messenger bag that David knows from experience weighs more than anything he's ever had to carry in his entire life, and she's fiddling with a purple hairband, like she's waiting to get in the car to retie her hair. It's a practical thing—her job is all about bending over to examine dead bodies, bone fragments, the occasional murder weapon Joe's too busy having a social life to deal with himself—but, if a genie popped up in his car right now, it wouldn't even occur to him to ask for a solution to the cases they haven't settled yet. He'd just wish for Selena to wear her hair loose all the time. And maybe let him run his fingers through it and maybe tug at it a little, just the one time. 

All this clearly means he needs to relocate his focus to more pressing issues, like starting the car.

Two minutes of companionable silence later, they reach a red light and he glances at Selena, who says, "You look tired."

"Do I?"

Selena's gaze settles somewhere near his ear. "Did I wake you up?" she asks. He shakes his head, but she doesn't look convinced. "Your hair's all—"

His goal of getting to the lab in record time didn't leave a lot of room for primping. He should add brushing his hair to his running-out-the-door method, somewhere between putting on his tie and double-checking that he's wearing street shoes. 

"No, I just—dozed off on the couch. Watching TV. You know how it is."

Selena frowns. "I don't own a TV."

"Right," David says, "in a manner of speaking. It's good that you called. My neck would've hurt like a bitch in the morning."

The corners of her mouth show the barest hint of a smile before she switches to professional mode as traffic resumes. "Okay, this is entirely useless to me, but relevant to your interests, so. According to Agent Staub, the body was found by a Barnes &amp; Noble employee looking for last year's elf costumes in a warehouse a few blocks away from her place of work."

"Noted," he says. He makes a concerted effort to keep his eyes on the road and not check the way Selena's face lights up when she starts talking about human remains. Which is not morbid, despite what Dr. Cyrus may say. Selena's the best at her job because—well, mostly because her IQ is disturbingly high, but also partially because of her amazing ability to compartmentalize.

"Well, I know better than to trust Agent Staub's cheer speech, but she sent a picture and it's—quite a scene. Like a small stage play."

It really is kind of a spectacle. It's not remarkably horrible—David's seen a lot worse, a lot weirder and a lot creepier scenes—but he's worked with Selena for long enough that he knows they're going to have to carry the whole thing to the Alexandrian and Selena will kill them all if they damage her goods, so some entertainment will be had by all—at least all who are not the people getting yelled at, Nick Jonas or Selena herself.

"It's so Christmassy," Selena gasps, taking it in. "I'm really glad Taylor made us put up Christmas decorations in the lab. This is going to fit right in."

Horrifying as it may sound, she has a point—the body's handcuffed to the railing of a freaking fireplace like a stocking hanging down for Santa to fill. Only if you put any candy through this stocking's mouth, it would just slip out through its ribs. There's not that much of the furniture left either, not after the entire display was presumably set on fire.

He follows Selena towards the body. She leans forward to examine it a bit closer and states, "Caucasian male, probably in his fifties. He can't have been here longer than a month." She doesn't even look around as she requests, to whomever it may concern, "I need this taken back to the Alexandrian."

"All of it?" David asks, but the movers are already working on that assumption.

"Removing each element from the whole here might severely compromise the remains," she recites, and would go on if she didn't have to stop to shout, "Be careful!" like anyone here doesn't know they might lose their heads if they're not. "Keep the handcuffs on!"

"Kinky," he points out.

"Shut up and go talk to your bookstore lady, Henrie," Selena grins.

 

*

 

Selena called Nick while she was waiting for David to pick her up, so she's not surprised to see him ready to start working the second she steps back into the lab.

Nick's face goes from his usual expression of admiration when he looks at Selena to absolute wide-eyed exhilaration when he sees what she's brought back with her.

"You realize it's not a good sign when your eyes try to run out of your sockets, right?" David asks him, carelessly straying from his job overlooking the transportation process. And this is why Selena tries to keep an eye on everything herself. 

"Are we assuming burned to death?" Nick perks up, slipping on his gloves. 

He's been on the intern rotation program for the better part of a year and he still sputters out nonsense whenever he's excited about a case. She'd kick him off the program if he weren't related to Joe—which is not to say she favors him because of his legal connections, absolutely not. She just remembers Joe being incredibly annoying and not that bright when he began working for her, and now he's an almost indispensable part of the team, so she's willing to give Nick some time to grow into his job and his potential place within the team. 

"We're not assuming anything, Mr. Jonas," she says. "_We_ are going to examine and extract conclusions from any evidence we find. Presumptions—"

David interrupts with a chuckle, just enough of a pause for Nick to pick up where she left off.

"—only lead to seeing proof where there is none or what there is points to something different, got it, Dr. Gomez," Nick says, offering an apologetic shrug. "Sorry I asked."

"Good," Selena says with a nod. "Can you prepare the remnants of the fireplace for Joe to examine whenever he sees fit to show up?"

Nick's mouth starts to curve and he forces the smile back, but not before Selena's already seen it. She may be a bit unworldly when it comes to human interaction, but she's not stupid, and she's been working field with David and watching him interrogate suspects for long enough to pick up on certain things, like how happy Nick always is to announce someone isn't around to do their job.

Predictably, Nick says, "As a matter of fact, Dr. Gomez, Joe had a date tonight. He's not likely to check in until Monday." There's a hint of excitement in his voice, too. 

"Well, then get everything ready and if Joe hasn't showed up to take care of it when you're done, you can get a head start on separating and identifying particles."

"Thank you, Dr. Gomez," Nick says happily, and heads over to the remains of the display still sitting on the cart, urging the hauler towards Joe's base.

Sometimes Selena wonders if this is what it's like to own a dog.

"Okay, if no one needs me, I'm leaving now," David announces. Selena gives a nod of acknowledgment and turns back to her bones. "Call me when you figure out who this guy is, alright? I won't come by until a decent daylight hour anyway, seeing as it's Sunday and a week before Christmas and all, so don't rush on my account. Get some sleep. Be a normal human being for once, Mizz G."

"Don't call me that," Selena says automatically. She doesn't really mind anymore, not from David. She still threatens to fire Joe whenever he builds up the nerve to believe he can get away with it.

David's already walking out, and he just raises an arm in some sort of leave-taking fashion and says, "Good night, Mizz G."

She takes a shower when they're done arranging the skeleton on an examination table. She takes a nap in the morning, when the skeleton is clean and Demi has come by to push Selena onto the couch in her office until she agrees to close her eyes and stay there while Demi scans and photographs the remains to reconstruct the body and try to find a match in the missing persons database.

By the time Selena wakes up, Joe's forlornly going through store logos on the projection screen in Demi's office, and David's hanging around the examination table, where Nick's inspecting the victim's carpus on the display unit and Taylor's leaning back against the railing looking testy. 

"You slept," David marvels when she sets foot on the platform. 

"You brushed your hair," Selena shoots back. 

"You put yours up in a ponytail," David offers. "It must feel so constricted, always held back like that. Give it some freedom."

Taylor coughs. "If we're done stating the obvious," she interrupts, folding her arms over her stomach, "I believe there are findings I should be made aware of." She inflects a rhetorical question into her words, which makes Selena want to say _no, there are not_, but, for one thing, Taylor is her boss, and for another, it is much, much more enjoyable to engage in annoy-Dr.-Taylor-Swift games when Demi's around to keep them going past the moment Selena's professionalism kicks in. 

Which is always before she's opened her mouth to the contrary. "Fifty-five-year-old Caucasian male, five feet twelve inches tall, on the big side."

"The big side?" David snorts.

"I _slept_," she remarks, walking around the table, and looks back at Taylor. "The body was incinerated post-mortem. There's signs of incompletely healed dislocation on the condyle of the inferior maxillary bone—"

"He got punched?" Nick offers.

"We don't know yet," Selena snaps.

"It makes sense," Nick says, stepping aside to let her get a full look at the display. "The scaphoid bone is fractured, too. It makes—okay. He gets punched in the face, it catches him off guard. He stumbles backwards, falls on his arm, hits his palm on the floor."

"But that didn't kill him," David urges.

"Any hints as to what the actual cause of death was?" Taylor asks.

"We have a match!" Demi shouts from the door to her office.

The match certainly fits Selena's description: a middle-aged white man—Selena's always been better at identifying specifics from bones—reported missing two weeks ago. His name is Bill Mulligan and he owns a furniture store called Bill's Furnishings a few blocks from the warehouse where the body was found.

"The fireplace he was handcuffed to? Had 'Bill's' imprinted on the undersurface," Joe offers.

"Okay, so we have a furniture store owner attached to his own creation and killed by—" Taylor prompts.

"Most likely strangulation," Demi offers, and Selena nods in agreement. "Most likely from behind, which means he was probably dead before any physical restraining happened, and most likely with some sort of rope or string."

"Would be easier to determine if there were any flesh left," Taylor commiserates. 

"Oh, come on, it's almost Christmas," Joe says.

"So what, Joe?" Taylor snaps. He's the only person in the lab Taylor ever calls by their first name, and you'd think that would be a good thing, but Selena knows it's Taylor's way of putting him down without overstepping her boundaries as Joe's boss. It's a clear example of why dating your coworkers is a terrible idea. Especially once you break up with them.

"Well, you know what they say," he begins, grabbing an electric blue garland from Demi's desk and wrapping it around himself. 

Demi laughs. "What? What do they say, Joe?" she humors him.

"Uh, if you've got both tinsel and a psycho in the house at Christmas," he says, twirling one extreme of the garland, "don't let the psycho decorate the tree."

Taylor rolls her eyes, and Demi shakes her head. "Really, Joe? Who says that?"

"I just did," Joe explains, and throws the garland around Demi's neck. "Nice scarf, Demetria."

"If there wasn't a lot of fragile electronic equipment around, I would hit you."

"I would like that very much," Joe says. Demi groans in disbelief and pulls up the projection screen.

When Selena looks around, she notices David's walked out of the room to make a call. 

It's seeing David on the phone that always makes Selena feel like they're going to solve a case—like the beginning to an inevitable end. She's aware of how irrational that is, how many cases they _haven't_ solved, but she knows David's success rate has increased substantially since they assigned her to him, and she enjoys the optimism.

 

*

 

The trick to keeping Selena happy as David's crime-solving partner is letting her know what they're dealing with, which is why David always lets her tag along to places not necessarily involving physical evidence, or watch him interrogate the suspects. Sometimes she picks up on clues he wouldn't have noticed, clues she wouldn't have been able to draw from lab evidence alone, and besides, for some reason, he always feels more confident and does his best work when he knows she's watching. It's a win-win situation.

The first spot they hit is the victim's daughter's house, a two-story place in the suburbs, clean and shiny and perfect and just like every other building within view. 

"These neighborhoods are creepy," Selena points out, and David walks a little closer to her the rest of the way to the front door.

A young woman, about twenty-two, opens the door while wiping her right hand on a green apron with the words 'Sadie Banks' embroidered over the front. 

"Sadie Mulligan?" David says, openly glancing down at her apron.

"Early wedding gift," she says apologetically. "Yes. You are—"

"Special Agent David Henrie, FBI," he says, showing her his badge, "and this is my partner, Dr. Gomez. We're sorry to barge in like this, but we have some news about your father."

A few cups of tea, some awkwardness from Selena and some eye-hugging from David later, Sadie decides she's ready to answer their questions.

"So, this furniture store—" he prompts.

"I don't think you'll find anything there," Sadie says. She doesn't sound like she's covering anything; she sounds like she's trying to help and believes it would be a waste of time for them to check her father's store. David can tell from her body language and the way she's talking, like it requires too much effort to keep from breaking into tears. "You should check the Christmas market."

"The Christmas market?" he urges.

"Yeah," Sadie says. "They, uh, they put it up a few weeks ago, before my father went missing. They changed organizers this year, and this woman, Samantha something, she and my father got into a bit of an altercation because she wanted to move the market closer to his store."

"And he couldn't have that because—"

"Um, there's this guy at the market who makes really amazing handmade furniture," Sadie says. "Really amazing. Really—anyway, last year he 'stole' a few clients from my father, and it didn't really matter because the market also brought in new costumers like it does every year, but he felt moving the market closer was just pushing it. Especially since the market stays up until later than he can afford to keep the store open, and it just didn't work for him."

"So they had a fight," David repeats. Sadie nods. "A public fight?"

Sadie's mouth widens. "I mean, I'm not accusing her. Of anything. I'm just saying that was the week he disappeared, and they put up the market where she wanted to after he did, and she might know something. Definitely more than—" Her voice breaks. "—more than I do."

David nods reassuringly. "Thank you, Miss Mulligan," he says. "We'll be in touch."

 

*

 

Selena's fieldwork method is this: follow the FBI agent around, keep your suspicions to yourself until he runs out of options and asks, and pay attention to things while he pays attention to people. It's straightforward and uncomplicated, like mathematics. 

It wasn't always like this, because Selena's nothing if not thoroughly analytical, but the last time she tried to deviate a search based on her gut instinct she cut a week into David's summer vacation and nearly got herself shot in the head, and she's learned that no matter how fallible her own instincts are, it's generally a good idea to trust David's. 

So far that's gotten her a safe distance away from moving bullets at all times, so she figures it's a good method, for the most part. The only times she wishes they could change it is when she finds herself in crowded spaces like a Christmas market at noon on a Sunday—full of people who make Selena feel borderline claustrophobic, and things that could easily have been involved in the victim's murder. 

Samantha Byrne is a modestly large Irish woman who definitely looks like she could have dislocated a two-hundred-pound man's jaw. 

"Bill? From the furniture store?" she says when David asks about him. "Yeah, we got into something of a shouting match. He kicked a table. I may have thrown a miniature nativity scene at him," she adds hastily. "But after that little, uh, contretemps, shall we call it, he bought a few sets of ornaments from us for his store half price and I agreed to push Tommy's stall as far away from it as I could. I even _almost_ convinced everyone to set up shop where we did last year, but then we did here and he didn't say a word, so I figured he was okay with it."

"You're not aware he was reported missing around that time?" David asks.

"Oh," Samantha says. "No. But that would explain why he didn't issue any further complaints."

A few seconds of sunshine shed light—literally—on one of the boxes in Samantha's stall. There's a metallic sparkle, and Selena reaches out to draw a pair of handcuffs out. 

"Those are _just_ like—" David points out, and Selena nods. He turns towards Samantha. "Those are just like the handcuffs the body was found in. Are you sure he was the only one bothered by having competition a two-minute stroll away?"

Samantha sets her hands on her hips. "Did you hear the part where I said he bought ornaments from me?" David keeps staring at her. "Oh, come on. If I _were_ to kill someone, which frankly I can't imagine a situation where that wouldn't be a completely unnecessary hassle, do you really think I'd be stupid enough to leave something I sell around the body? And why the hell would a dead body be wearing handcuffs anyway?"

"He was handcuffed to a railing," Selena says. "On a fake fireplace."

Samantha glares at her and turns back to David. "Okay, I know you're FBI and everything, but _dude_, look at me. I can throw a punch all right. I _can't_ carry gigantic wooden furniture around. I don't even sell it. You want Tommy," she says, pointing at one of the furthest stalls from hers, "right through to the end, not me."

They're halfway through the crowd when David says, "So what do you think?"

"Nothing until I get these handcuffs back to the lab," Selena says, pointing at the messenger bag where she's stored them. He's humoring her, or possibly trying to get her to speculate, and she's not going to cave.

"I really don't think she cares enough about the market to kill a guy over it," he says. 

"I don't think she would have used any props to strangle him," she comments. "She strikes me as a bare-hands type of fighter. And not exactly a killer. Perhaps a leg-breaker."

He snorts and keeps walking.

 

*

 

David hates foul-mouthed, arrogant assholes.

He's sure that's not by itself an unpopular opinion, but sometimes he has to interrogate them when all he wants to do is hit them, and the FBI unfortunately frowns upon inflicting bodily harm on presumably innocent suspects.

It's moments like these when David misses Iraq. 

"You know Sadie," he repeats sardonically. The guy's just told him the sob story of how he had to drop out of college to support his little sister when their parents died, and just how much Sadie Mulligan helped him through it. David would be touched if he didn't hear crap like this every week.

"Look, I'm just telling you what I know," Tommy says, spreading his arms over the table. "I could lie and say I have no connection to a dead guy and his daughter, but hey, guess what, you'd just have to go over to Bill's store and find out I was lying. And that would move me up the list of suspects, which, to me, is a much worse fate than pissing off an FBI agent."

David snorts. "You might want to reevaluate your priorities," he spits out, and sits down again. "Fine. Go on. Sadie got you a job."

"Mr. Mulligan has—had a lot of providers. She just called a few up and told them I was a good handyman and that's how I got into the furniture thing. Me and my sister may move around a lot now, but we have a decent life thanks to Sadie, and I wouldn't do anything to hurt her."

"But you'd ask for another job," David says. 

"She offered," Tommy grits out. "It's December, Agent Henrie. My sister is fifteen years old. She wants a laptop for Christmas. Christmas markets make more money than most Renaissance fairs, but it's still not enough to buy a decent fucking laptop. Sadie knew about the situation and said, 'hey, why don't you decorate my dad's store? God knows he has no taste'. And Bill was okay with it, so why would I have said no?"

David shakes his head. "Of course, yeah, working for the competition, why would that bother you?"

Tommy rolls his eyes. "Sadie's an old friend of mine," he repeats. "If it had been a random someone, maybe I would have been—annoyed. A little peeved. Still would've taken it, though. But Sadie? She wasn't trying to buy me off. She was just helping me out. And it was Bill who complained about me selling my stuff so close to his store. My stuff is one of a kind and more affordable than anything at Bill's Furnishings. I had nothing to lose."

"But he let you work for him anyway, did he," David says.

Tommy makes a gesture with his fingers. "You absorbed the part where I said his daughter got it for me? The minute Sadie got involved, the man was putty in her hands. After that quarrel with Sam and everything, Sadie just walked up to him and told him I was a good friend and had good intentions and he was just cool with it."

"Cool with it," David echoes.

"Frosty." David waits. When Tommy opens his mouth again, David's expecting something along the lines of no, the guy was not cool with it, but he still did it for his daughter or whatever, which would have given David some sort of enmity to work with. Instead, what comes out of Tommy's mouth is, "Listen. Whenever the guy died, I bet there's more people than you can count on your fingers who'll tell you I was nowhere near him."

The worst part is, after a few calls, David realizes his alibi is even sounder than that one piano player whose manager had been killed during a performance—the woman hadn't even left the stage to piss in four and a half hours, all of it happily confirmed by over five hundred spectators.

But at least that piano player seemed to have liked the dead guy, and she'd given Selena and David tickets for a concert and he'd spent an entire night with his arm around Selena's shoulders under the pretense of not losing her in the crowd. 

This guy is just a foul-mouthed, arrogant jerk, and now David has no excuse to punch him. 

 

*

 

David looks pissed when he shows up at the diner.

Selena's seen him in good days and average days and really crappy days, but he only ever looks like this when science or the real world contradict a very strong, generally negative and always irrational feeling against a suspect. Or a superior, if he's dealing with paperwork.

He orders a chocolate-covered chocolate Danish, which he only does when he's feeling sorry for himself, and he flinches when Selena attempts to stroke his forearm reassuringly. 

She glares at Dr. Cyrus, because Dr. Cyrus elbowed her and told her to do that even though David clearly didn't need to be touched right now, and Selena would rather not get elbowed for no reason.

"I feel it's my duty to say this, given I audited the whole interrogation process," Dr. Cyrus begins after he's had an appropriate amount of time to settle down. She holds out for an okay. 

"What?" David asks.

"That guy was lying," she says. "That guy was _so_ lying, I will eat my foot if he wasn't keeping something up his sleeve."

David raises his eyebrows. "Okay, one: I remain assured in my belief that you faked your qualifications, and two: he has an alibi. I questioned fifteen people and all of them backed him up. Name a minute during which the victim was getting beat up and there's two people who saw him chatting up a customer, or selling a monkey lamp, or holding a freaking baby."

Dr. Cyrus blinks. Selena sips her coffee.

"If he's lying," David explains, enunciating, "then everyone is lying."

"Okay," Dr. Cyrus shrugs. "I haven't heard their sides of the story, I've only heard his, and I'm sure he did know Sadie and she got the job for him, but he was also deliberately omitting information, and I think you should be aware of that."

"I have paperwork to do," he says, already standing up to leave. He rests his hand on Selena's shoulder and leans in. "Tell your squints to call me immediately if they find something I can work with," he adds, scrunching up his face meaningfully, and Selena nods in acquiescence. "Okay, bye." And then he tilts his head and places a quick kiss on her neck, not even an inch below her ear. 

It tingles, but not in a bad way—it's a warm gesture, and Selena feels his breath reverberating over her skin for several seconds after his mouth is gone. Maybe she tries to retain it, too—sort of feels like her skin's trying to chase it, even though that makes no anatomical sense whatsoever.

He seems vaguely taken aback by his own action, too. Which—okay, it was weird, and kind of overstepped their unwritten boundaries, but Selena knows better than to add fuel to the fire, so she just smiles like it's totally normal for your work partner to do that. 

"Let me get this straight," Dr. Cyrus blurts out as soon as he's out the door, "that was his lips on your earlobe, yes?"

Selena shrugs. "He's a very physical person."

"He didn't kiss _my_ ear goodbye." Dr. Cyrus huffs out a laugh that's more indignant than amused. 

"That's because you're annoying," Selena says, and her phone beeps.

Dr. Cyrus goes on like Selena hasn't said a word. "Also, ha, told ya."

"You can stop acting like you're twelve now," Selena suggests, checking her texts, "and hey, look, Joe found something, I must go now."

 

*

 

Sometimes, when he's hanging out at the lab waiting for someone to find something he can latch onto to further his investigation, David likes to pretend he's overseeing a team that works just for him.

His training is no good for anything else, so that keeps him from feeling completely useless. Because he's not. He's their guide. Or what he does guides them towards more things for him to do, whatever. So in a way it is his team, not Taylor's. His and Selena's.

Demi called him earlier and explicitly told him Joe had found something stuck in the fireplace. Which he had, except they're not entirely sure what it is or means yet, and it didn't occur to Demi to mention that they didn't need his presence right that second and he didn't necessarily have to put off the rest of his paperwork any longer.

She was intentionally deceptive, and he appreciates it. Waiting around is not nearly as painful as going through documents full of fine print and pleasantries, and he gets to watch Selena work in her natural habitat, which is a source of amusement and delight, even though half the time he has no idea what she's doing.

After a while, Demi calls them into her office and gathers them around her computer screen.

"There," she says, pointing at it.

The display is split in three parts—one is showing what David assumes is what Joe found, the second one a reconstruction of what it might have belonged to, and the third one is going through pictures in a succession so quick David can't tell what they are until it settles on one image.

"That's gorgeous," Taylor blurts out.

Demi looks at her and breaks into a stupid grin before turning back towards the screen. "I know, right? A sapphire. Definitely not something you just insert into a block of wood where it can't be seen. So I did a search for engagement rings and this is the closest match to the shape of the gemstone."

It looks familiar, too. David's seen this ring before.

"What was that doing in a piece of furniture?" Selena asks. 

"Sadie Banks," David says. "Sadie Mulligan. She's getting married. She was wearing a ring just like that one."

"It wasn't missing anything, though," Selena points out.

"She could have gotten it refitted."

Taylor coughs. "So you think she killed her dad? Over her engagement?"

"That... would be a substantial leap," he answers. Selena nods in agreement. He turns to Demi. "Can you figure out if the ring's mass-produced or just sold somewhere specific?"

"Sure," Demi says, and an hour later he's standing before a jewelry display with Selena next to him, waiting for the manager to come up with a customer list.

"Okay, we had two of those and sold both the same week," he says scanning a list on a clipboard. "One of them paid cash and left without a guarantee."

"Do you remember him?"

"I didn't sell it to him. And if I didn't sell it to him and it was sold this month, I'm afraid the only person you can ask is currently spending her Christmas break in the Bahamas and refuses to pick up her phone, so you might have more luck with this other guy." He hands them the clipboard, pointing a wrinkled finger at the name.

David chuckles. "Well, maybe that wasn't such a leap after all." He looks up. "Call us when you find out who bought the other ring," he says, scribbling his office number next to Greg Banks's name.

"It's always back to the suburbs, isn't it?" Selena says when they're back in the car. 

David just smiles and keeps driving.

 

*

 

Suburbanites don't take well to interrogation rooms, or conference rooms, or anywhere they feel they're being judged. 

Okay, nobody does, but suburbanites are the worst. It never ceases to amaze Selena how David can actually draw something from questioning them in places like this and as couples, when all Selena sees is the way Sadie's closed in on herself in her chair and her fiancé has his forearms firmly on the table, like he's trying to guard the dogs off her. Selena thinks it's a bit sad that in the twenty-first century men insist on acting like their girlfriends need their protection, but she understands the instinctual response from an anthropological point of view.

David, though, David sets their behavior towards each other in context and applies all those gestures and who answers what question to what may have happened to somebody else. Selena can't do that, because what David supports his speculation on doesn't qualify as evidence, and Selena doesn't do assumptions, even when they're just being used as something to consider.

"What is this about?" the guy's asking. 

"If I had a twenty-year-old daughter, I probably wouldn't be happy to see her get married to one of my employees," David says, and Sadie avoids his gaze, shakes her head.

"You think I killed her father to marry her?" the guy says, looking completely bewildered. "He gave me his blessing. It was supposed to be a very, very long engagement from the start. I'm going off to grad school in the fall, I wanted it to be clear that I planned to spend the rest of my life with Sadie. She's the love of my life. Bill knew that. And Bill knew there wasn't going to be a wedding until we were both done with school."

"And he wasn't my dad's employee," Sadie chimes in softly. "It wasn't like that. One of my dad's drivers got sick and he needed someone to fill in for him and Greg offered. He didn't need the money." She shakes her head softly, nervously as she speaks, like she's not sure whether to laugh or cry. "My father may not have approved of me committing to someone so young, but it had nothing to do with money. He was just scared I might cave in to... whatever and become a housewife instead of making a career for myself. We talked it over and he knew that wasn't going to happen."

David turns to Greg. "So, Greg. A driver, huh?"

"Yeah," Greg says with a shrug.

Selena gasps. "Oh. That would explain the fireplace, and the carrying of a fireplace to a warehouse," she says. David shakes his head, and she smiles apologetically. 

Greg snorts. "The firep—oh, crap, that's where that went?" David tilts his head expectantly. "It was in a semi. It was a replacement, and Bill had the keys to the tractor so whoever killed him could have just taken them from him. He carried that bunch of keys everywhere."

"Who ordered the fireplace?"

"I have no idea," Greg says. "Bill wasn't a huge fan of doing paperwork. He usually left everything for the last of the month and updated the books from memory." Greg bites his nail. "If you want my advice," he grits out, "you should find the semi. It vanished when he went missing and if those two things are related, there might be something there."

At the lab, Selena gets caught up in Demi's plastic reconstruction of a six-hundred-year-old female Native American skeleton, and doesn't even pay attention when David drops by to tell them the police are already looking for the semi.

"We're on the right track, Mizz G," he declares before leaving again.

"I've been meaning to ask," Demi says, "what's with the nickname?"

"I think it's an ego thing," Selena explains. "If he calls me 'Doctor' it becomes painfully obvious that I have a Ph.D. and he does not."

"And what's with the G?" Demi says. She looks like she's not expecting a clear answer. Everyone always looks like Selena won't have an answer when they ask about David. It doesn't make any sense.

"He's—lazy," she says. "People are lazy."

"Right," Demi chuckles. "You know he's interested, right? Because he is. Like, he really is."

"Of course he's interested. We work together. We're partners. It's only natural to pay attention to someone you work in such close proximity with. It increases the chances of successful collaboration." Selena shrugs. "Besides, I'm fascinating."

She's not serious, but then again, she does feel like she is when David looks at her. It feels like there's nobody else in the room, and Selena knows that's ridiculous, but she finds it strangely pleasing.

 

*

 

Greg's description is detailed and accurate enough to find the semi in less than four hours, abandoned in a town about forty miles north of the city. Selena sends Joe and Nick up to bring it back to the lab, and a few DNA tests later it becomes obvious that David's awesome at his job. 

At life as a whole, really. 

"We still haven't found the killer," Taylor points out, effectively deflating his ego. 

David sighs loudly. "It's like you _want_ me to rub your singleness in your face," he says, and Taylor rolls her eyes. "And we found the murder weapon."

"We found Christmas ornaments," Joe says. "Which could easily mean he was about to get started on decorating his store when he got killed."

"And got blood all over a string of lights because, why, he wanted to dye them red? Joseph, please."

Selena announces, "We found the murder weapon. Definitely strangulation, definitely by metal cord."

David shoots Joe a smug grin.

Nick says, "Did you know," and pushes through Taylor's alarmed face, Joe's groan and David's raised eyebrow to focus on Selena's expectant face and continue, "there is a parody of a popular Christmas song that says, 'one light goes out, they all go out'? I suppose this is applicable to the situation."

"I did know that, Mr. Jonas," Taylor says, "but feel free to enlighten us further."

"All right." He grins. "Did you know male elephant seals have an average lifespan of twenty years?"

Taylor turns to Selena. "How do you put up with him?"

Selena smirks. "He's like Santa's eager little helper," she says easily. "There's always room in my daily annoyance quota for one of those. He will make a great forensic mineralogist one day, and put Joe out of his misery if they both choose to continue working with us." Joe is first and foremost an entomologist, secondarily a palynologist, and will _occasionally_—emphasis Joe's own—work with rocks and chemicals. Those occasions have arisen more and more regularly since the Alexandrian lost their forensic mineralogist slash chemist two years ago and allowed Selena to supervise the hiring of a new one.

And, of course, _nobody_ is good enough for Selena—but Taylor didn't know that at the time.

Selena Gomez is overly professional, occasionally inappropriate in her rationality and more often than not inherently disconnected from the world at large. David knows Nick's one of the brightest interns Selena's ever had, but his true gift, in David's opinion, is his ability to singlehandedly make Selena look like a well-adjusted adult. 

"How—" Taylor blinks. "How do you make that sound like a good thing?"

"Obviously," Selena says, "your priorities are skewed by your need to comply to societ—"

"Never mind," Taylor cuts her off. "I'll ask Dr. Cyrus if I get a chance. Good work," she adds, and walks off.

 

*

 

David throws his hands up in the air. Dr. Cyrus looks entirely unaffected by his theatrics. "Seriously, who in their right mind would choke someone to death with holiday props?"

"It's nearly Christmas," Dr. Cyrus says. "People are not in their right mind. They're stressed. They act out."

"Some people overeat," David says solemnly. "Some people kill other people. Welcome to civilization. They should put that on a t-shirt. I miss wearing t-shirts."

"I'm serious," Dr. Cyrus says. "If he gave someone extra work, or told them they would get no bonuses this year, that could have set them off. Tests and surveys have proved that stress levels during the winter holidays are—"

David interrupts her with a groan. "Not you too."

Dr. Cyrus frowns. "What?"

"You're catching NickJonasness."

"I am _not_," Dr. Cyrus says. "And that's not a real disease. And that's not why I called you two into my office. I wanted to talk to you about the Christmas charity ball next Friday."

"Obligatory attendance," David says, twirling the hideous purple tie he's wearing around his hand. "Get dressed, get there, let Taylor get a good look at me, get out."

Dr. Cyrus rolls her eyes. "That's as much as I'm ever going to get from you, isn't it?"

"Yep. And now I have to go talk to Greg Banks again. Wish me luck," he tells Selena.

"Luck doesn't really play a role in—"

"Thank you," he interrupts, and walks out.

Dr. Cyrus grins. "So, you have a dress picked out yet?"

"I know you're under the impression that we're friends, but we're not friends," Selena says, "and I don't like your taste in clothes. If I wanted to talk to someone about this, I'd ask my best friend." Dr. Cyrus tilts her head. "Demi," Selena specifies. "What?"

"You haven't given any thought to maybe not clashing with Special Agent Henrie's tux? Since you two will be spending the majority of the evening together, as it always happens at these functions."

"That is not true," Selena says, though it kind of is. David can't talk science and Selena can't engage people in a non-educational setting, so they usually end up standing near the exit and leaving as soon as possible—David goes back home, Selena goes back to the lab. But that doesn't mean they have to match. They're not, like, _dating_. She tells Dr. Cyrus as much, and Dr. Cyrus just laughs.

"You are dating, actually," Dr. Cyrus says. "In, you know, in your mind."

"I think I know what I'm doing in my mind better than you do," Selena says. "And I know you're really proud of Demi's unethical little work crush, but the sign on your door says 'shrink', not 'matchmaker'. You might want to consider a change of profession."

Dr. Cyrus looks at her compassionately, like she's a little out of touch. "As a matter of fact, the sign says 'psychologist', and all this anger is very possibly a sign that there's something in your life you're scared to embrace because it is out of your control."

"We're partners. It's always a bad idea to date partners." Selena lights up and offers Dr. Cyrus a patronizing smile. "Look at Taylor and Joe."

"That was a bad idea because it was Taylor and Joe," Dr. Cyrus says. 

Selena blinks. "You may have a point," she concedes reluctantly. "But that still doesn't mean I want to date David."

"You don't," Dr. Cyrus says incredulously.

"No," Selena says. She's telling the truth, so it's weird, the way it sounds like a lie.

 

*

 

If there is one thing David hates more than self-serving, stupid scumbags, that's arresting people he doesn't feel are guilty but have enough hints against them to make them dangerous in the eyes of the FBI. 

Like this Greg Banks guy. 

When David swings by Bill's Furnishings, he's looking for evidence. Bloody furniture, suspicious employees, a tearful testimony from the homeless guy down the street. Greg Banks kind of reminds David of himself despite the differences in age and profession and skin color, and he'd prefer not to have compared himself to a psychopath by accident.

What he finds, though, is one of the other drivers having a smoke near the back doors while Greg unloads a mahogany dining table into the storeroom. 

"FBI," he warns, and the woman throws her cigarette to the ground and flattens it with her foot. "That's not what I meant, but okay."

"Is this about Bill? I just started working here just 'round the time he disappeared. Late evening shift. I didn't even get to meet the guy." She sighs and leans back against the bright orange brick wall. "Though I guess that's better than—there's supposed to be that moment right before you die that you know you're gonna or something, so he must've known he was never gonna get to see his little girl get married."

This isn't new information, but random people who are unconnected to the murder are more likely to tell you things when they believe they _have_ things to tell, so David asks, "That was the exact day they got engaged?" Just to be sure. The girl nods. "_After_ they got engaged?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she came by to show him her ring, but he wasn't around, and then her fiancé took it so he could get it refitted and by morning, poof, Bill was gone. Which is a crying shame, 'cause that was quite a rock."

Just like that, David realizes Greg has no alibi. He told them he was driving somewhere when that happened, but he failed to mention he was looking for a jewelry store.

"He just wanted to get it fixed on the spot," Sadie says when David spots her inside the store. "It wasn't broken when he gave it to me. It was just too loose, and he wanted it to be perfect and wearable, so he just set off and hit every marginally metal-related store until he found one where they'd do it right then and there. He didn't—he wouldn't—he wouldn't hurt a _fly_, Agent Henrie," Sadie says. "I'm sure there's security footage of his car somewhere."

There isn't. 

There's a chunk of sapphire and a not entirely approved of engagement and access and knowledge of the trailers, the furniture, the warehouse—motive and opportunity, but no alibi. 

So there go David's happy winter holidays.

"To err is human," Nick cites when David mentions this at the lab. "And to kill people is human, too," he adds perkily. "We've been doing it for millions of years."

David rolls his eyes and heads over to Demi's office to ask about Selena's dress. Last time they ended up posing next to each other in official pictures and he's pretty sure he lost ten percent of the sight in his left eye just from the way his purple shirt clashed with her pistachio green dress.

Not that he's printed one of the pictures out and keeps it in his wallet or anything. He's not _that_ delusional. He's just maybe looked at them a lot, that's all.

 

*

 

On a rational level, Selena understands that Taylor doesn't organize these parties just to spite her for being too invaluable as a scientist to be appointed head of the Forensic Division. And Selena prides herself on her ability to think things over and not make rash decisions based on unjustifiable signs like feelings.

She just really, really hates these parties, and the number of them has multiplied since Dr. Hudgens moved to Europe and left her post open. Surely there are better ways to raise funds for charity than make a forensic science team stumble their way through fancy social events every few weeks. Even Nick has stopped trying to persuade his band to perform at them, and Selena would be perfectly willing to donate to Taylor's charity of choice if she made a good case for it.

And, okay, it's nearly Christmas, so a charity ball now does have a place, but that doesn't make Selena any more willing to leave Demi's office and face scary admirers and people who hate her for being famous or too good at her career or having appeared on the cover of the Scientific American and the New York Times—twice. Selena doesn't have much of a social life outside her team and David and occasionally Dr. Cyrus and her psychology school friends who know better than to get into an argument with Selena, but she doesn't think that's a bad thing. She doesn't want to change it.

"At least they respect you," Demi says. "The second I mention I'm an artist, they just sneer at me. It may not hurt my self-esteem in the slightest, but it doesn't really make me want to spend time with them either."

Most of all, she doesn't want to change it when Joe and Demi have been working all evening on turning up some acceptable evidence against Greg Banks in the form of Sadie's engagement ring, the piece of sapphire from the fireplace and the particles on the victim's shoes. 

"Nice hairdo," Selena hears from the door, and she looks up to find David standing there in a tux. It doesn't reflect his personality any less than his normal work attire does, but it's still an incongruous image. She's sure the small pompadour Demi suggested for her looks just as disparate, but David's smiling at her like—

"Nice monkey suit," she says. 

Like he thinks it's cute. Like he smiles at her when she gets really excited over a set of remains or interrupts Dr. Cyrus's constant string of analysis to argue with her about the fallibility of psychology. 

"I know some people here have a really hard time admitting they were wrong," Joe says. He's sitting on the edge of Demi's desk, leaning over and wrinkling his dress shirt in ways Selena is sure Taylor will enjoy pointing out later. "But there's no way this is from the same ring."

"The victim's daughter's fiancé took it to a different shop the night of the murder," David points out. "You think that would explain whatever you found?"

Joe shoots him a glare and turns to Demi and Selena. "The properties of the gold in her ring don't match the gold particles we found on the victim's shoes. Getting a different jeweler to adjust the circumference of the ring wouldn't have removed all traces of minor chemicals from the previous material. The guy you arrested wasn't the only customer who purchased that design, was he?"

"There was that other one who didn't leave a name. And paid cash," Selena confirms.

"Lower-quality gold, cheaper ring, easier transaction," Joe says. "If only we had an FBI agent at our service to track people down."

"We have Henrie," Selena says. "Henrie can assemble a team." Joe snorts. "What?"

"Why am I hearing talk about assembling teams," Taylor says with no questioning inflection, waltzing in like she's royalty instead of just their boss. Selena wonders if it's possible not to act like a princess when you're wearing a strapless, pale pink mermaid evening gown. "I should be hearing talk about cancer research! feeding starving children in Africa! The Jonas Foundation for the Education of Foster Children," she says pointedly, looking at Joe.

"That was Miley's idea," Nick says from the door. "It went from Miley to Danielle to Kevin. Joe and I have nothing to do with it."

"I hope you brought an extra suit, Joe," Taylor says.

"I did," Joe says with a grin, reaching behind Demi's desk.

"I'm just an intern," Nick says. "I could get kicked off the rotation program next week. Who needs me there?"

Taylor glares. "Stay back and I will personally kick you off the program the next time you so much as _breathe_ about the procreative frequency of penguin couples or mating cats or baby leprechauns."

"There's no such—" Nick begins, then quickly stops. "You can't do that," he says instead, sounding not very sure at all.

"Watch me."

"I hate you," Nick tells Joe, deadpan. "Did you find anything?"

"Yes, yes I did," Joe says. "Which, by the way, clearly makes me King of the—"

"Jonas," Taylor interrupts. "I'm sure what you've found will change all our lives for the better. I don't doubt that for a moment. But, see, today it is not our lives we are saving, so why don't you store this information away in one of the many, many empty drawers of that lovely vortex that is your brain and keep that drawer locked until the party's over? All right, people? Let's _go_."

It's a straight order, and Taylor hasn't even dragged the whole train of her dress out of Demi's office when everyone scrambles to their feet and gets ready to waste the next three hours of their lives. 

"It's to shut her up, isn't it?" Joe asks Demi. "That why you want to screw her? Just want to sit on her face and busy her mouth until she stops freaking talking?"

"Shut up, Joe," Demi says, and hurries her pace. 

David offers his arm to Selena and she obliges, feeling kind of lightheaded. She thinks she'd like to walk this close to David all the time, and not just when the occasion encourages him to act like a dork in a tuxedo. 

She thinks maybe there's more to them than work partnership, than—

She starts talking about Greg Banks instead.

 

*

 

There's something about charity balls and the overabundance of them they've been having at the Alexandrian since they gave Taylor carte blanche to organize night-time events at the museum that David appreciates. 

It's not having to wear a tie, or feeling completely out of place in a crowd of scientists, patrons and rich people who have nothing better to do that night but want to talk about the yacht party they've been invited to for the next. It's not losing hours he could use to track down murderers or catch up on paperwork or cook a decent dinner for himself. It's not even the music—boring—or the booze—limited—or the dancing—mostly nonexistent, except for the times Demi takes pity on him, drags him near the string quartet and creatively informs him of just how big an idiot he's being—. It's not the charity balls themselves, really. 

He thinks it's the anticipation. Like, for the week or so leading up to it, he stops feeling sorry for himself about his ridiculous thing for Selena and believes that, if anything has to happen, it'll happen at the ball. Because it's a ball, and because Selena has the kind of name you can call after if she happens to lose a shoe. You can't scream, "Pam!" and make it sound classy. Selena sounds good.

And, okay, he doesn't dream of asking her to dance and sharing confessions by the lake in the moonlight, because he's not a thirteen-year-old girl. But there are things that cross his mind.

Seeing Selena run into a different room to get away from the fuss, inconspicuously placing his glass of wine on the nearest waiter's tray and following her—that's the beginning of one of the things that have crossed his mind.

He finds her chilling out by an original plant fossils display, surrounded by old natural history encyclopedias. 

She turns around at the sound of his footsteps, and her light violet dress sways with her. She glows under the bright museum lights, and David just wants to wrap his arms around her ridiculously light frame and kiss her. 

"I thought you thought paleobotany was the lowest common denominator of all paleontological and biological sciences," he offers instead.

"Hi," she says, face mostly blank. Bored. A little bewildered. He's pretty sure there's more than one thing wrong in what he just said, but she doesn't correct him. She just waits for him to get close enough to lean sideways against the display.

There's something charming about fossils, how long they've been around, the way they look like tiny sculptures. 

"You like my hair, huh?" Selena says, a smile dancing over her expression. He doesn't even remember looking up from the fossils. 

"It's wearing a nice hairstyle," David says. "It's worn better ones, though."

Selena bites her lip and takes a step towards him. David's not sure how he doesn't step back—it should be instinct, get as far away from whoever is chasing you. But it's _Selena_—if he's going to be anybody's prey, he'd like to be hers.

"You like it when I let it down," she says, so low it barely makes for a whisper. She's not trying to seduce him. It's incredibly endearing, the way her eyes light up like she's realized something and doesn't quite understand it yet. "Like in your car sometimes, or when we're working on a case late at night at the lab but I'm done with the hands-on part of my job, those looks—they mean you want, your fingers. You want to run them through—"

David cuts her off with a low chuckle, opening out his hand over her neck. "I like your skin even better," he says. She's letting him touch her neck. He thinks he's allowed. Their eyes meet, and then he thinks he's allowed to say, "I like your lips," too, except Selena steps back at the words. 

Like he's made this too real for her or something.

"Sorry," he says clearly. "Was that weird? That was weird, right? That was weird." His fingertips are still brushing her skin—his thumb is on her pulse point, for God's sake. He'd move away, but her hand is holding his steady in place, and he may like the idea of being prey, but he doesn't want to be prey scared away.

Selena laughs, low and amused. "I don't mind you calling me Mizz G," she says, completely out of nowhere, and kisses him. 

He doesn't need to be told—or kissed—twice; by the time his brain decides it's time to short-circuit, his hand is cupping her face and he's sneaked an arm around her waist to pull her closer, so much closer, so close he can feel the shape of her breasts through his shirt and Selena has to twist a leg over his calf to balance herself.

It's pretty much perfect—her lips are perfect, her body is perfect, the tilt of her head, the way she gasps his name when he pulls away to gauge her reaction, not even long enough to let her reach the last 'd' before he's licking her mouth open again.

And then his phone rings. 

He ignores it in favor of kissing the spot between Selena's neck and her collarbone that makes her go _mmm_, but there's only so much inappropriate behavior Selena can take—halfway through the third ring, she reaches around into his pocket, disentangles herself from him and answers the call. 

He sneaks in another lick up Selena's neck before her eyes widen and she says, "Miss Mulligan? Sadie! Sadie, what's— The line went dead." She faces him. "She was saying something. She was asking me to do something. I have no idea what she said." David just keeps staring. "The line went dead, Henrie! We need to do something!"

David blinks and reacts. "We? What, no, you're not putting yourself out there tonight. I'm going solo." 

Selena glares at him. 

"You can't run on those heels," is the first thing he comes up with, and not five minutes later Selena's wearing old black jeans over her evening dress and a pair of Demi's Converse on her feet. 

Demi herself is on the car radio, deciphering words and signals to lead them to Sadie. To Sadie, who's in danger because David was an _idiot_ and ignored his gut instinct in favor of stupid, incomplete facts that he didn't even _like_.

Selena's never going to hear the end of this one.

 

*

 

One of the things David loves about this job is how it makes your capacity to focus evolve to such an extent where it's your job, now, and everything else later. When a psycho has a cashier at gunpoint in a supermarket, you aim your own and keep your eyes on his gun, his face, his intentions. When you're looking for hints at an electronic equipment store, you keep your eyes on the employees, the customers, every corner and hollow and unopened box. 

When some guy you _let go_ has a girl whose fiancé you _arrested_ tied with a string of lights to a rack of Santa costumes in an old warehouse, you don't think you might need to get hammered later. No. You take out your gun, aim it at the criminal, and look—analyze. 

What David sees is a terrified girl, barely a teenager, whose hand is bleeding with the effort it must have taken her captor to squash an engagement ring down her finger. It's dirty and crushed and definitely the sapphire they were looking for. He slithers towards her with his gun plainly pointing at the guy—he barely even remembers his name, the guy from the market, _Tommy_—careful, so careful, because Selena ran in first when David determined the guy wasn't carrying any firearms, and she has him on the floor already, holding him steady while the backup he called for when he realized what was going on arrives. 

It's harder than it looks like to untie Sadie from the rack, but he manages it fast enough, muttering words of encouragement when he takes the gag out of her mouth and she cries, "Oh God, oh my God, I can't—" Her ankle gives when she tries to move, and by the time David and her are both up on their feet, David's startled to look back and see Tommy holding Selena against his chest and an ornamental but sharp dagger over her neck. 

He keeps his eyes locked on him as he carefully drags Sadie out of the warehouse. "I can see police lights," she whispers to him, and he nods firmly once, to let her know he heard. 

"Can you stay here for a second?" he asks, and he feels rather than sees her agreement. 

"I was never here," Tommy says when David gets close enough. Selena makes a deep noise in her throat. He knows she's thinking of ways to take him down, too. David may be here, but if she can, she'll save herself. It would be an attractive quality if it didn't involve her life being endangered all the time. 

"Let her go," David commands.

Tommy snorts, like he's in charge here or something. "I was never, ever here. I am going to walk back to the door with Dr. Gomez here in my arms, and you're going to close your eyes and then open them and huh, a girl had an accident and you heroically saved her."

"No," David says, "no. Why don't you let me tell _you_ what's going to happen. You are going to let her go, and I'm not going to shoot you before the police get here."

"Shoot me?" Tommy mutters. "Shoot me? You really think you're that good?" He presses himself closer to Selena. David would rather not do this, but he is. He's a great shot. He'd rather not run the risk of hitting Selena with a bullet, but on a scale of cooperation to fuck you, he's pretty sure he's focused on his anger enough to aim and hit bad-guy leg.

Tommy goes down with a high-pitched cry, and suddenly there's light and noise surrounding them, and it feels surreal, like everything's happening miles away from David and Selena—the ambulance taking Sadie, the police dragging Tommy into a car—all miles away from where David's holding Selena against his chest while she takes deep breaths and tries not to cry. 

"You're bleeding," he says. Her shoulder is. The blade must have gotten her—it's a shallow cut, but he has Selena's blood on his fingers now, and it makes him want to throw up. 

She pushes back, inhaling deeply now that they're out of the warehouse and can take in fresh air. She looks—she looks okay. It's not the first time something like this has happened—she's been at gunpoint before. She spent fourteen hours buried underground in Joe's car once. This is just their job.

"You should go to the hospital," he says.

"Don't be ridiculous," she says, though it's not as convincing or firm as her remarks usually sound. "I have bandages at home. I can deal with this myself."

"Selena—"

"No hospital," she says. 

David grits his teeth and gives in. "Fine. But I'm taking you home right now."

 

*

 

'Home' manifests itself in the form of David's apartment, after Selena realizes they've taken a turn that does not lead to her house and David says, "I'm not leaving you alone in there," like there's no room for negotiation.

Selena just needs an analgesic and a nap right now, so she doesn't argue.

She sits on his couch while he looks for something in the bathroom, and the next thing she knows she's alone in his bed, feeling groggy but comfortable and warm and _safe_. There's a bandage on her shoulder and it doesn't hurt and everything feels okay again. 

There's some rattle from the kitchen, and then the click of kitten heels approaching the open door to the bedroom.

"Hey," Demi says.

"What are you doing here?" Selena asks softly. Demi crosses the distance to the bed and sits down next to her carefully. "How long have you been here?"

"Since Henrie called and threatened to deprive me of one of my favorite limbs if I didn't cover for him immediately," Demi says. "I'm reasonably certain he doesn't know what my favorite limbs are, but I'm pretty fond of all of them, so."

Demi hands her a glass of water and some ibuprofen, and Selena sits up to swallow it down. Then she makes an attempt to get up, but is thwarted by Demi's hand on her arms, pushing back.

"I've been made to swear I wouldn't let you get out of bed until you got ten full hours of sleep," Demi says. "And everyone at the lab is under strict orders to kick you out if you even so much as think about setting foot on Alexandrian premises tonight, so no dice."

Selena chuckles. They solved a case, there's nothing really pressing to work on right now, and David hates shooting people. She figures she can comply with his wishes this once.

"Okay," Selena says. "Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to meet a specific sleep quota to earn that right?"

"Considering you almost got killed over it, I think he'll forgive me," Demi says with a wink.

What she says isn't much of a surprise—Selena had more or less put two and two together after she noticed the ring. Tommy wanted Sadie, had wanted her for a long time, and he took the job decorating her father's store to get closer to her. Tommy and Greg bought similar rings for no reason other than they both asked the same person for advice, Bill—though Bill presumably wasn't aware both rings were going to the same person. 

According to Tommy, the day Greg proposed to Sadie, he was in the garage helping Bill with the boxes of Christmas ornaments he had purchased from the market, and he was around when Bill got the good news.

"So he lost it," Demi says. "He beat the guy up, seized the first ornament within reach, strangled him. The guy must have fallen into the semi at some point or something, because there's not enough blood for him to have been dragged in."

"I know," Selena says. "So he saw the victim was dead, and—"

"Yeah, he says he panicked," Demi says, "though at this point that doesn't really matter. He handcuffed him to the fireplace, grabbed the keys and a gas can and, well, you already know the rest." 

"But why go back for Sadie?"

"He didn't go back for her, he went back to double-check—make sure he hadn't left a trail—and she was trying to find something to prove her fiancé didn't do it. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Selena hates these cases—unrequited love, crimes of passion, she can deal with that. But these cases, where if just one call had been made a bit later, or answered in a more public place, nothing would have happened... There's something so terrifying about luck and coincidence. That's why she sticks to science.

"So, wait, what happened to your neck?" Demi asks. "Henrie said you were fine."

"I am fine," Selena says. "It's just a little cut. Nothing to worry about." She raises an eyebrow. "You want to say something."

Demi grins. "You know he's freaking out and just told me he wasn't because he wanted to make you think he thought you could take care of yourself, right?"

"You lost me at the third pronoun," Selena lies.

But Demi's probably right.

 

*

 

"Was I right _or_ was I right?"

Selena scowls. "What are you talking about, Cyrus?"

They're walking down the hallway towards the elevator—Dr. Cyrus caught her at the entrance and latched onto her. Selena thinks this is what people who take Sundays off feel on Monday—two days doing nothing, and suddenly you've got a shrink trailing your tail.

"You and Agent Henrie," Dr. Cyrus says. "Something happened last night, I can tell."

"Did you ambush Demi again?" Selena says. Dr. Cyrus smiles and bats her eyelashes at her. "That's low, _Miley_. That's really low."

"And you're wearing your hair down," Dr. Cyrus points out. "Oh my God."

"Your investment in my personal life is disturbing," Selena says. "And I really don't think the way I may or may not be wearing my hair is a good enough reason to invoke any higher entities." Except for how, in a way, it totally is. Selena's twitching to get ahold of a hairband. She came straight to the FBI headquarters to give a statement and she figured she might _try_ it, but it's killing her. Or, not killing her, as that would not be scientifically possible. Just making her really anxious.

"That's what Agent Henrie said," Dr. Cyrus mentions, her eyes widening meaningfully, and Selena just barely manages to restrain herself from making a rude gesture. "Honestly, in my opinion, my investment in your personal life is what makes me good at my job. Also makes me a good friend."

"We're not _friends_," Selena says, and pushes the elevator button about five more times than strictly necessary. 

"You keep telling yourself that, hon," Dr. Cyrus says, and Selena shakes her head.

Later, she's sitting on the small couch near the door out of David's office—the coffee table is holding the stack of paper that was previously on Selena's lap, and David's sitting on one of the visitor chairs near his desk, turned around to face her.

She looks up. "I'm done," she says.

"About the charity ball," he begins, making a face.

She leans forward, elbows on her knees, and finds herself self-consciously fidgeting with a strand of loose hair next to her neck. It's so stupid. She's just maybe hoping he'll notice. That maybe it'll do the talking for her. She's generally good at initiating—she's never had any trouble finding willing bed partners, or even actual dates—but crumbles during the follow-through, and she's not sure where she and David stand now. They're friends. They're work partners. They kissed. They've known each other for years now. She liked that kiss. They're _good_ friends. 

"We're partners," she says, standing up for no reason. She's already leaning towards writing that kiss off as a bad idea. She was bored, he was around, he looked good. Not that he doesn't anymore—he's a very pleasant sight right about now, or he would be if Selena weren't driving herself crazy in her head trying to figure out what exactly it is that she wants to do about _that_—but not everything that looks good has to be kissed, or loved. Not everyone.

"Right," David says. He rises to his feet, and Selena assumes he's going to get the door for her; he does that for everyone, and time and time again Selena's told him that's not necessary, but it's hard to break a habit, and she's sure in the FBI this is considered good protocol. She should take a look at the code book sometime.

She starts to walk towards the door, but stops when she realizes David's walking towards _her_. He says, "You're wearing your hair down," and shifts forward, carefully stroking the strands of hair resting on her shoulder. It makes her shiver, stupidly, and he runs his fingers down her arm until they pass her sleeve and find skin, her hand. 

And then he draws the blinds down and leans in to kiss her.

Her first instinct is to step back, put a hand between them—except somehow he's holding both of them now, and his breath is warm and minty over her lips, like he _prepared_ for this, and Selena smiles against his lips and kisses back. 

He gasps, surprised, and steps in closer, deepens the kiss. Leaning back, she realizes he's backed her up against the corner of his office, and she feels suddenly trapped. She doesn't _want_ to leave—she likes this, she'd like to keep doing this—but this is not her territory and she needs space. She needs all this space since the incident with Joe's car underground, and Dr. Cyrus has helped a lot, but Selena's still easy to alarm in confined spaces.

"David," she warns softly, "this is probably the wrong thing to say, but if you don't leave me enough room to run out of here I will knee you."

David blinks. "Sorry," he blurts out, "sorry," and Selena hears the rattle of the blinds as they're squashed when David leans back against them. Selena takes a step forward and there's more noise of plastic clinking against glass, like David thinks she's leaving.

She stops about two feet away from him and looks up, hand brushing his tie before tugging at it a little. "Come here."

A goofy grin spreads over David's face. "You really are wearing your hair down."

Selena has no idea what the emphasis is supposed to mean, so she says, "Yeah," shaking her head, and stands on her tiptoes, tilts her head up. His hand cups her jaw, thumb stroking her chin as he kisses her slow and sweet, taking his time, his other hand resting lightly on her hip. She likes her space. She likes that he understands that. 

After a while, she pulls away and says, "I liked that."

"Yeah?" David says, trying to get his lips back on hers. She presses her index finger to his mouth, and he covers her hand with his.

"Yeah, but I really have to go," she says. "There's a four-hundred-year-old triquetral bone in my office that's not going to examine itself."

David nods. "This is probably a bad idea, anyway," he says, unconvincingly, and for Selena to catch that he must be trying to be.

"It really is," Selena agrees, and his face visibly falls. "Next time we should maybe wait until we can't be caught by FBI security cameras."

He nods heartily, the corners of his mouth curving back up before he steals another kiss, and, silly as it is, she feels like they're doing the only right thing.

 

*

 

The first thing Demi says when she notices Selena's hand is in the vicinity of David's wrist over the bar is, "Oh my God, finally," and then, "pay up, Joe."

David was vaguely aware of how obvious he was, but he had no idea the squints had a running _bet_ on when he'd hook up with Selena. He doesn't know whether to be amused or disturbed.

"It's not what you think," Selena says quickly, taking her hand back and wrapping it around her vodka martini. David tilts his head and raises his eyebrows at her. She says, "I'm not changing partners."

"I don't think Demi's going to tell anyone," David says. There's something about Selena's personality that makes lying to the FBI not really a big deal—David knows the second they step into a crime scene, Selena will forget she's dating him and treat him like dirt, except—well, she'll treat him like Joe treats dirt. Like David's not the smartest tool in the box, but he's helpful. He's a helpful partner. He thinks maybe all these years basically pining for her might have increased their chances to work out, because now David knows better than to take a lot of things personally. 

Nick shakes his head and drags Miley off to dance, though David's pretty sure he's just fleeing the scene. Without Dr. Cyrus there, no one dares to question Selena, which in turn means David can just lean over the bar and openly stare at her and be either ignored or envied by the other customers.

Besides, for scientists, the squints' attention span is crap, and the minute Taylor walks in and orders a single malt, straight up like something's seriously wrong, Joe's elbowing Demi and Demi's glowering and saying, "Are you _five_?" and Joe's making faces like he is.

David and Selena leave after a couple more drinks; he drives her home, walks her up to her door, and he's just about to stop kissing her goodnight and leave when Selena kicks the door open with her heel and flings a leg around his knees, drags him in. He thanks his years of reflex training for not letting him stumble and fall over the small step leading to Selena's apartment, and he thanks this little incident for reminding him that it's Selena he's dealing with, and people like Selena lead—sometimes well, sometimes badly, sometimes in unusual ways.

In this case, David's more than happy to follow. 


End file.
